There was a black, cult-like preacher shouting obscenities at white teens wearing MAGA hats at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after an anti-abortion rally, with a Native-American man entering the emotional fray banging a drum apparently in an effort to diffuse an ugly situation, but the effect was quite the opposite as the teens’ reaction was the focus of a viral storm that transfixed a nation.

All of this was happening amid a bitter government shutdown over a wall, which has underneath it, a tense, venomous struggle over our national identity. Cell phones were held high to capture the images of anger between the groups. Those images were uploaded to social media and spread as culture-war wildfires do, fast and furious.

But it was one image that truly captured the viral moment: the face of a white teen in a MAGA hat who smirked as a Native American man chanted, while other MAGA-hat wearing teens screamed and jumped up and down. My reaction was fury. It looked bad, and I’m not going to go back and call it OK, either.

No, I don’t think the teens were acting in a respectable manner toward that man at all. They danced in front of him and laughed and were acting a fool. But the situation was not the simple show of disrespect that the viral clip made it seem. There was way more to that story than a simple smirk. And those teens actually had a valid reason to be indignant and angry — though not at the Native American man, who thrust himself into the middle of a tense scene.

It’s puzzling that adults with the school didn’t frantically push the boys away from the commotion — regardless of the politics. I think it’s pretty standard that any chaperone with any group of kids wants to avoid public confrontation involving students. Who is politically right or wrong isn’t a matter for chaperones to consider. Job number one is getting students away from potential harm. The chaperones failed those teens in that way. Every person in that scene would have been better off just walking away. Everyone should have recognized that whatever was happening was not positive. It was full of something volatile and dangerous.

But the viral clip of the smirking teen was, of course, just one clip from what happened. And anyone who goes back and takes the time to watch will see that the Hebrew Israelite preacher was trying to goad the teens — and basically anyone within voice range — into public confrontation. That man was the instigator of the hateful moment. He was shouting awful things at the Native Americans, too. The preacher was just brutally awful in what he said, calling the teens “school shooters,” “incest babies,” “hyenas, “dusty-a!! crackers,” and more. The teens were ticked and rightfully so. One teen took his shirt off and led the large group in some sort of school spirit cheer, which sent the group into an emotional frenzy. They were chanting and hollering and leaping.

They were also wearing red MAGA hats. And that’s the key thing. Those hats are politically loaded these days. Those hats represent one thing to one group and something entirely different to others. The teens were responding to racial slurs and real antagonism with a spirit cheer. This seems pretty benign, actually, doesn’t it? But the scene of fired-up teens wearing Trump hats took on a sort of symbolism that was outside of their own control.

Potent symbols never have just one meaning. They are one thing to one person and perhaps something completely different for another. For me, the MAGA hat is a symbol of a dark spirit gripping our country, a fearfulness and rage that has taken root and ramped up our inner distrust of each other. I know others view it quite differently, and feel pride in that hat. But whether you agree or disagree with me, you probably feel something emotionally. Right? So when kids are jumping and acting stupid, it’s one thing, but when they do it with those hats on, it carries cultural significance that transcends the particular moment and their particular motivations, because the symbol makes us think about the big-time animosities clashing in our country now and where each of us stands in relation to that.

We should all agree that the threats those kids and that school received after that event were absolutely shameful. It was completely disproportionate to the situation, but it wasn’t surprising anymore, was it? We saw kids from Parkland vilified for speaking up after a school shooting. Any viral moment now is rooted in cultural feelings that transcend any particular action. This means that any character caught up in one of those moments is going to get blasted at a massive scale online in a way that feels completely vigilante and scary.

If there’s anything that seems truly definitive of the Trump era, it’s the embrace of unbridled viral hatred online. Technology makes this all so easy. A viral moment is the spark on fuel-soaked terrain. One image can be an emotional trigger (yes, I used that word), but it seems an appropriate word here for left and right. People online get “triggered” all the time by things that are often intended to provoke exactly that. People actually seem eager to get mad, as if hate itself is a fun hobby, a catharsis.

And while the strange event at the Lincoln Memorial steps was a real-life viral moment, there are quite a few viral arsonists these days, basically people aiming to instigate cultural instability with emotionally provocative words and imagery that often have no basis in truth. Viral arsonists can be individuals, agenda-driven groups, nation states, media outlets — basically anyone with a desire to create an online wildfire, whether it’s for monetary or political reasons. It’s a true wild west of rage. Online provocateurs are, in essence, the same as the Hebrew Israelite preacher who stood there shouting horrible things at Native Americans and kids. He was desperate to get a rise out of someone. That seemed like his whole point of standing there, to enrage others, to bring them into his sphere of hateful feelings.

But are the venomous people who attack others with terrible language online really any different than the misguided preacher of hate? Aren’t they full of the same spirit? The number of hate peddlers is really massive right now online. And I think we see it on full display on the world’s most famous Twitter feed, that venom that sprays out and then is soaked with counter venom. It spreads as both a provocative and a reactive force. Viral hate makes money for some, but it does no one’s soul any good. And our country must be better than this.

So where the heck are our nation’s chaperones? And what are you going to be — a preacher of online hate or a chaperone, who works to keep the peace? I say this, because I recognize that the nation’s political terrain is dry and fuel-soaked. And it won’t take all that much to light this ground ablaze with something awful. I don’t want that. Do you? Of course, when it burns, there will be a million cell phones filming it, and we’ll argue over who was right and who was wrong until we all see ashes.

We need leaders and citizens who are interested in putting out these fires, not starting them.

Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madison County Journal. He can be reached at zach@mainstreetnews.com.